This past month has being rather insane and tiresome for everyone who has being involved in this big shit stew. But i have come to wonder why send death threats if you are going to kill? It doesn't really make sense to me. Wouldn't you try to kill one you want dead without then knowing you want them dead?
death threats?
- Thread starter Mad as a Hatter
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Might be working your way up to killing them.
Alternatively, people sending death threats to people they don't even know except from the net...yeah, maybe they are playing by weird rules all of their own.
But, this sort of thing has been going on for many years, it's just not much talked about. Every so often, someone gives following through a go.
Alternatively, people sending death threats to people they don't even know except from the net...yeah, maybe they are playing by weird rules all of their own.
But, this sort of thing has been going on for many years, it's just not much talked about. Every so often, someone gives following through a go.
Eh, death threats are basically meant to intimidate than to harm. Like a sort of "stop this, or I'll make things ugly" type of thing. You're right, if you're actually planning to kill someone, the worst thing you could do is tip the victim-to-be off about it.
This isn't condoning the practice, by the way. The idea that one should threaten to kill someone who said something one doesn't like is morally repugnant.
This isn't condoning the practice, by the way. The idea that one should threaten to kill someone who said something one doesn't like is morally repugnant.
The people who send death threats to people they only know from the internet aren't usually the kind of people who kill people. Remember that politically motivated assassinations are, thankfully, pretty damn rare.
As for why people send death threats AT ALL, I don't think wanting to intimidate the target into shutting up is really a major consideration, either. Because, you know, it never works. Death threats are only meaningful if the target actually thinks you have the motivation and ability to kill them. You can't hold someone at gunpoint unless they believe you have a gun. And an anonymous death threat from the internet? That's about as vague as things can get. Has anyone ever actually stopped doing whatever unpopular thing they were doing because a stranger on the internet threatened to murder them?
More likely, the threat-senders just want to make the target feel bad.
As for why people send death threats AT ALL, I don't think wanting to intimidate the target into shutting up is really a major consideration, either. Because, you know, it never works. Death threats are only meaningful if the target actually thinks you have the motivation and ability to kill them. You can't hold someone at gunpoint unless they believe you have a gun. And an anonymous death threat from the internet? That's about as vague as things can get. Has anyone ever actually stopped doing whatever unpopular thing they were doing because a stranger on the internet threatened to murder them?
More likely, the threat-senders just want to make the target feel bad.
Most murders aren't all that well planned, and are often caused by the situation escalating.Mad as a Hatter said:
But more commonly, they are sent to intimidate (either to shut a person up, or to make the person threatening feel like they have power over them) or to lash out in anger.
And a lot of time the person sending the threat doesn't understand how horrible it is.
Yeah, you might not be serious, but how is the target supposed to know it?
Many people have faced violence, or have been threatened in real life, if you get an anonymous threat in e-mail or even on a forum, how are you supposed to know it's just some snot-nosed kid on the other side of the planet who has no actual way of harming you?
Especially people who are public figures, or activists, will face actual face-to-face threats, so an e-mail saying 'I'll kill you' can be much more threatening to them than it is to the snot-nosed kid who has never had to be actually afraid of stalkers and violence.
Never works is an exaggeration, surely. Now, yes, most death threats aren't followed through on, but it only takes one to really cause problems. Is the risk to your life worth saying stuff on the net? It's always easier to keep quiet.Soadreqm said:
Melissa McEwan from Shakesville has just come back to blogging after taking 2 weeks off, in part because of the harassment she gets.
Not really. I mean, I might be WRONG about it, but I'm quite seriously asserting that threatening to kill someone on the internet to make them follow your instructions literally never works.thaluikhain said:
I've never heard of this McEwan case before, but you yourself just said that she took time off from blogging because of "harassment". This seems to imply that the shit she was getting was just making her really uncomfortable, and she didn't want to deal with it any more. That's not the same as stopping blogging because you seriously think that someone might actually kill you if you don't.